Sequoyah and King Sejong

Since earliest history billions of men and women have inhabited our planet. The percentage as to how many of those people, including present day, remain known to any outside their circles has got to be astronomically low. Let's face it: few of us become famous in the sense that our names and exploits are passed down from one generation to the next. This reality, however, is not to say that those of us who remain unknown - as defined by history - have not and do not make significant contributions. In fact, my own sense is one could argue that the tiny number of people who do gain lasting fame is not reflective of the number of men and women who have contributed to the progress of us as a species.

In the field of communication, there are two such men I wish to highlight for the contributions they made. They are Sequoyah, a Cherokee Indian who lived in the late and early nineteenth century, and King Sejong of Korea who graced our planet in the early to mid-1400 A.D. I only recently became aware of their efforts via author Jared Diamond's great work, "Guns, Germs, and Steel." Sequoyah and Sejong were pioneers in the field of writing as a result of their efforts to create alphabets. Today, of course, all of us sit in front of a computer or pull out a note pad and compose all kinds of messages. We do so by making use of our "ABCs." These two men strove to create symbols from which others could communicate via writing. They did this at a time when, from their perspective, no other symbols or alphabets existed.

Sequoyah was an illiterate Indian who provided blacksmithing services. He had his own business and came upon the idea of creating written symbols to help him keep track of his customers and his financial transactions with them. Professional linguists came to praise this singular man for his efforts. King Sejong, many years earlier, devised what was called the han'gul alphabet that featured, among other things, the grouping of letters by syllables into square blocks and shapes of consonant letters that depicted the position in which a person's lips or tongue are held to promounce them. I recognize these two largely unknown men because of what they did and because they represent the many that played roles in enabling all of us to advance and maintain lasting connections.